Hope Moves Slowly and Quietly

The government can wage war or dispatch drones quickly, but hopeful movements of ordinary people creep along below the surface, sometimes barely noticed until they hit the “hundredth monkey” stage. Truth takes a long time to penetrate. The Afghan war has been going on for over ten years, and it is only recently that the American public is on record as overwhelmingly against it!

The great movements for reform—Civil Rights, Women, Peace, Anti-nuclear, Green—moved along at a slow speed and didn't seem to be getting anywhere until they erupted and changed society. Those of us who participated in these movements remember how we always felt small and inadequate and always seemed to be losing;yet these people movements eventually changed the United States and the world.

The Truth Leaks Out Slowly

Truth is hopeful, but truth leaks out slowly. Wikileaks is persecuted and prosecuted. So are whistleblowers. The reason the Occupy movement has been treated so harshly is that the establishment is afraid of it!You would think that the occupiers were alien invaders, not people spontaneously rising up. But Big Power senses what Hannah Arendt stated clearly decades ago: governments have authority, but power belongs to the people. Andauthority fears people power!

Be Open to "Miracles"

Egypt just had its first democratic elections in over 30 years.We went to hear one of the leaders of the uprising in Egypt, and he recounted how their attempts over a ten-year period to organize the opposition against Mubarak had failed. And then on January 1, 2011, a strange event set off the revolution. An Orthodox Church was bombed in Cairo, and when both Christians and Muslims started protesting, they were brutally treated by the security forces.Suddenly (and unexpectedly) Egypt erupted.

Historian-philosopher Hannah Arendt comments on howsurprise and “the new” seemingly appear from nowhere in history: “The new always happens against the overwhelming odds of statistical laws and their probability. . .The new therefore always appears in the guise of a miracle.”

Occupy the U.S.

The Occupy Movements in the U.S. also appeared out of nowhere. And they are a great sign of hope. Listen to what Johan Galtung has to say about them in an interview with Amy Goodman:"I’m enthusiastic about (the Occupy Movement). It’s a nonviolent, leaderless movement. And you quoted thesubtitle of my book about the U.S. Empire: "U.S. Fascism or U.S. Blossoming?" Both. Fascism from the top: . . .Youhave the horrifying Supreme Court decision that to buy politicians, which is essentially what the bankers are doing,is freedom of expression. Absolutely horrifying. Bye-bye U.S. democracy. And then you have the groundswell of people coming up and a fantastic, imaginative talent of Americans. I love it. Leaderless. And they have as point oneon their agenda to increase the level of consciousness andawareness. Look, they were able to put the 99 percent versus 1 percent. . .on the agenda. . .

And, of course, I’m itching to—what shall I say?—to see ideas that I think are good ideas implemented in practice.But they take their time. They do the job of consciousness raising, talking more among themselves than to otherpeople. . .They are working from the ground up. I find it fantastic and deeply American, in the most positive sense.So I just want to see them, as many of them as possible, occupying as many places as possible and having theconversations and the dialogs going on. . .The Arab Spring landed in the U.S.!And it has been spreading, and I hopeit will be Occupy the U.S."So we have to keep moving ahead, instead of throwing up our hands and giving up! Jim Hightower put it well:

Jim Hightower

"It's a big time for you and me. It's one of those times when the focus is on the very ideals of America itself.What kind of country are we going to be?That's very much up for grabs today. It's not a settled question. So my message is, it's no longer enough for us to be progressive —we've been progressive for a long time.We've got to become aggressive again, because the powers that be have become radically regressive."